


Like Coming Home

by emeralddarkness



Category: DCU Animated, Zeta Project
Genre: Gen, S1, Slice of Life, earlyfic, filling plot holes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-04-21
Updated: 2011-04-21
Packaged: 2017-10-18 11:01:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 920
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/188252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emeralddarkness/pseuds/emeralddarkness
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Now why would a robot who could look like anyone living and quite a few more people stick with the same face for months or years? Especially when it didn't take long for that face to become widely known by just about everyone.</p><p>My jab at fixing a plot hole that has always bothered me. Set very very early in s1.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like Coming Home

When Ro had first walked up and found a homespun looking teenage girl with candy-red nails sitting on the bench that her and Zeta were supposed to meet at, she thought that something had gone wrong. The feds, or Zee had shorted out or got shot or even just that she'd gotten the time wrong. Then the bland girl, who had unremarkable brown hair and unremarkable brown eyes and a figure that wouldn't get her a second glance from anyone, looked up at Ro, and something about the tilt of her head or that particular, polite, slightly interested and slightly friendly expression seemed so familiar that Ro walked over and sat down next to her without further consideration.

"Uh, hey Zee, whatcha doin? What's the glitch?" If she was wrong, it wasn't as though _that_ sentence was so incriminating; she could just claim a misunderstanding and go on her way. But she'd - or would that be he'd? - given Ro a slightly puzzled look, in that Zeta sort of way. He (she) always seemed kinda adorably helpless. Like a puppy. Despite the looks. Or maybe because of them.

"Glitch?" Her voice was pretty, kind of, but nothing remarkable. The tone was also absolutely not _Zeta_ \- but the intonation was, and listening to it was a little creepy. People shouldn't be able to sound so familiar and unfamiliar at the same time, it was too confusing. And disturbing. Not that Ro would ever admit to that. "At my last diagnostic, all of my systems, both primary and secondary, were fully opera-"

"No, not _that_." Ro brushed aside that creepy feeling that had come from listening to Zeta sound like a stranger and like someone familiar at the same time and made a noise of slight disgust. "I wasn't asking you if you had a bug - though, on second thought, I guess it was a kind of poor choice of words. But honestly, if you expect to blend you have to get shway with the lingo. You catch my drift?"

Zeta looked politely, entirely lost. "Sorry."

Ro sighed, blowing her bangs out of her face. "I guess that's a lesson for another time. Never mind. But what's with the new style? I liked the old look."

Zeta looked down at (its? his? her?) hands, studying the nail polish with grave uncertainty. "I was under the impression-"

"No, not- look, the whole thing in general. This- you. I mean that's not you. The other one. Isn't that supposed to be the you that you are?"

"I'm not entirely sure I understand," Zee had informed her, and Ro pretended not to notice as Zeta moved her (his?) hands down and surreptitiously switched out the hologram of nail polish for just plain old nail color. Red wasn't his (her?) color anyway.

"There's a big surprise. What I meant was, why'd you switch disguises?"

"Oh! Is that what this is about?"

"Yeah, that's what this is about. So what's the glitch?"

Zeta shrugged. "Just what I'm used to, I guess. It used to be part of the programming. I would assume a variety of identities in order to approach my target, before. Well. Taking their place. It's difficult to avoid notice without a hologram, and it's best not to stay in the same disguise for too long. Normally I would just use the identities of various strangers, but Batman suggested-"

"You know _Batman_?"

"I met him several weeks before I first met you. After I decided to.... He suggested that I construct myself a new identity, out of parts of the various people I could scan. This person's nose, that person's eyes, combine them all and then adjust them so that I could have a unique identity. Or multiple unique identities. The last identity that I have constructed may have been seen, so I adjusted my default settings accordingly."

"Oh." Ro was silent, and Zeta looked at her curiously. "Is something wrong, Ro?"

"No," she said, "it's fine, it's just I liked the old one, that's all. Was kinda looking forward to... nah, just forget it. But you're not making it any easier for me to keep track of you."

Zeta was looking at her steadily. "You preferred my old hologram?" she asked, with a curious little lilt on the end of her voice. His voice. Weird to try thinking of him as a her, or her as a him, or whatever it balanced out to.

Ro hesitated, then figured what the heck.

"A little, I guess, yeah. And it would've been nice to be able to... I dunno, stick with something familiar for a while. But hey, whatev, right? Guess it was wrong to expect familiarity from a robot who can look like anyone." And wow, _that_ didn't sound too pathetic or anything, did it? "It's no bi..." She had looked back over at him (her, she'd have to get used to that) as she was talking, and trailed off when she met his purple eyes instead of her dull brown.

"Zee?"

He smiled at her, and the fact that it was a familiar smile now somehow made that _so_ much nicer. "Yes, Ro?"

There was a long moment, where he looked at her and she looked at him. Then she smiled. "Thanks. Now come on, let's blow this popsicle stand." And, as usual, Zeta looked confused as she dragged him to his feet.

"What is a popsicle stand, and why are we blowing it?"

"The popsicle stand is anything you want it to be, Zee."

**Author's Note:**

> Please remember to review and let me know what you think!


End file.
